- quotea genre of woodblock prints and paintings that flourished in Japan from the 17th through 19th centuries. Aimed at the prosperous merchant class in the urbanizing Edo period (1603–1867), depictions of beautiful women; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales; travel scenes and landscapes; flora and fauna; and erotica were amongst the popular themes.

- quote - ukiyo-e 浮世絵Lit. pictures of the floating world. Paintings and woodblock prints of genre themes developed from the mid-Edo to early Meiji periods, supported by the people in the middle class of society (shomin 庶民, or common people) mainly in the city of Edo. Because of this locality, ukiyo-e was also called *edo-e 江戸絵 or azuma-e 東絵 (eastern pictures; *azuma nishiki-e 東錦絵) during the Edo period. In the broader sense of the term, however, ukiyo-e includes various local paintings appreciated by common people in the Edo period all over Japan, such as *ootsu-e 大津絵 (comical, folk painting produced in Ootsu, Shiga prefecture), *nagasaki hanga 長崎版画 (woodblock prints depicting foreign people and objects seen in Nagasaki, Nagasaki prefecture), and *kamigata-e 上方絵 (woodblock prints produced in the Kyoto-Osaka area kamigata 上方, mostly portrayals of the *kabuki 歌舞伎 actors popular there).

The term ukiyo-e, which is first found in literature during the first half of the 1680's, derives from the fact that they depict the activities of a transient (floating), but therefore enjoyable world. Pictures of beautiful women *bijinga 美人画 and young boys, particularly the courtesans of the pleasure quarters yuujo 遊女, scenes from kabuki plays shibai-e 芝居絵 and portraits of popular actors *yakusha-e 役者絵, and pornographic pictures *shunga 春画 are the three major subjects of ukiyo-e. Literary themes taken from poems and stories from Japan and China were also popular, pictures of heroic warriors *musha-e 武者絵 being particularly favoured throughout the period. Often the classic themes were parodied or represented in mundane, contemporary circumstances (see *mitate-e 見立絵). Well-known landscape prints fuukei hanga 風景版画 and pictures of birds and flowers *kachouga 花鳥画 form just one of the later phases in the complex development of ukiyo-e.

Ukiyo-e were mass-produced in order to fulfill a great demand among middle-class people, who were their major appreciators. Therefore, the principal form of ukiyo-e were woodblock prints, which were planned by the publisher hanmoto 版元 and produced in collaboration with the painter/designer *eshi 絵師, carver horishi 彫師 and printer surishi 摺師.
Even hand-paintings *nikuhitsuga 肉筆画 were produced in large quantities in workshops under the direction of a master artist who designed the product, supervised its coloring by his pupils and signed them . Because of the vagaries of this studio system several versions of the same painting with slight differences often exist in ukiyo-e.

Art historically, ukiyo-e is placed at the end of the development of *kinseishoki fuuzokuga 近世初期風俗画 (genre painting of the Early Modern period). Although early ukiyo-e artists signed themselves as painters of *yamato-e やまと絵, suggesting that ukiyo-e succeeded the tradition of native Japanese paintings, the influence of various pictorial styles of the period, including that of the *Kanouha 狩野派, *Tosaha 土佐派, *youfuuga 洋風画 (western style painting) and *shaseiga 写生画（realistic painting), can be found in ukiyo-e . The history of ukiyo-e can be devided into three periods.

edo-e 江戸絵 Also azuma nishiki-e 東錦絵.
A general term applied to all full-color woodblock prints ukiyo-e 浮世絵 produced in the city of Edo (modern Tokyo), especially, single-sheet *ichimai-e 一枚絵 or series of such prints offered for sale to the public in commercial editions. Prints of this type that were made in Osaka-Kyoto were called *kamigata-e 上方絵. By the late 1760's full-color woodblock prints, alone or in series, had come to be a popular souvenir or gift from Edo , and the term is thought to have gained popularity among people living in the provinces. Santou Kyouden 山東京伝 (1761-1816) in a short popular novel *kibyoushi 黄表紙 published in 1782 makes an early reference to the term, noting that edo-e 江戸ゑ or azumaya no nishiki-e あづまやのにしきへ were famous products, meibutsu 名物 from Edo.

azuma nishiki-e 東錦絵Also written 吾妻錦絵, *nishiki-e 錦絵, azuma-e 東絵, edo-e 江戸絵. Brocade pictures.
Full color woodblock prints in the *ukiyo-e 浮世絵 style. The term nishiki-e is derived from the supposed resemblance of these prints to multicolored brocade fabrics. Azuma-e (Eastern pictures) and edo-e (Edo pictures), derive their names from the fact that full color prints were originally a specialty of the city of Edo, and thus a favorite souvenir for visitors from the provinces. The earliest known full color prints date to 1765. The term azuma nishiki-e (brocade pictures of the East), appears almost immediately on the wrapper for the series, Eight Views of the Household *Zashiki hakkei 座敷八景, by Suzuki Harunobu 鈴木春信 (.1725-70), published around 1766. Other contemporary sources also refer to these prints as azuma nishiki-e, but eventually the term was abbreviated to nishiki-e. With the spread of full color printing to other parts of Japan, especially to the kamigata 上方 area (present day Osaka-Kyoto), the terms azuma-e, azuma nishiki-e, and edo-e came to mean prints produced specifically in Edo as opposed to other cities.

Ukiyo-e (浮世絵)literally "pictures of the floating world"
is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints (or woodcuts) and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters. It is the main artistic genre of woodblock printing in Japan.

Usually the word ukiyo is literally translated as "floating world" in English, referring to a conception of an evanescent world, impermanent, fleeting beauty and a realm of entertainments (kabuki, courtesans, geisha) divorced from the responsibilities of the mundane, everyday world; "pictures of the floating world", i.e. ukiyo-e, are considered a genre unto themselves.

The contemporary novelist Asai Ryōi, in his Ukiyo monogatari (浮世物語, "Tales of the Floating World", c. 1661?), provides some insight into the concept of the floating world:

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is home to about 3,000 Japanese woodblock prints. These works, collectively known as ukiyo-e, or “pictures of the floating world,” were produced during Japan’s Edo period (1600–1868). Reflecting the interests and activities of the newly emerging class of moneyed commoners, ukiyo-e prints first featured the reigning beauties of the pleasure quarters and the dashing actors of the Kabuki theater, the pop stars of the time. Later, artists expanded their repertoires to include landscapes, floral studies, legendary heroes, and even ghoulish themes.

The exhibition showcases 160 of the MIA’s best prints by the genre’s greatest artists, including Harunobu, Kiyonaga, Utamaro, Shunshō, Sharaku, Toyokuni, Hokusai, and Hiroshige. With their crisp outlines, unmodulated colors, and surprising vantage points, the images are as fresh and captivating as when they were produced. Sensuality, fashion, decadent entertainments, and urban pastimes all reflect the popular tastes of young urban sophisticates of Japan’s pre-modern era.

Kobayashi Kiyochika made the compilation of humorous gestures and faces titled “Shinban Sanju-ni So” (New Thirty-two Faces). Because of the popularity of the series, he made additional designs and combined them into one series, “Tsuika Hyaku Men So” (Addition; One Hundred Faces).
From left top to right bottom:
“Mimi Komori” (whisper, gossip).
“Domori” (Stutterer).
“Tohmi” (Looking far away, Oh so beautiful...).
“Karashi ga kiita” (Very effective mustard. Wow, so spicy!).

Kobayashi Kiyochika (小林 清親 September 10, 1847- November 28, 1915)
was a Japanese ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Meiji period,born at a time when the old order of the Shogunate was already on shaky grounds and an adolescent when Western civilization rolled over Japan. For him, life became like a small boat in a rough sea
He was born into a family of lower-ranked samurai that served the Tokugawa family — something which a hundred years earlier or even fifty years earlier would have been a very pleasant thing; but in Japan, times were changing.

This hokku, judging from its placement in Issa's diary, is from the tenth month (November) in 1813 and is about wild geese from the north arriving in Japan in the late fall in order to winter there. Issa often addresses wild geese, partly perhaps because the word kari, or geese, suggests another kari that means "temporary, transient, fleeting," and partly because he seems to regard them as fellow life-travelers. The language of the hokku is strong, impassioned, and colloquial, and the tone is intimate, as if an experienced person were giving friendly, emotional advice to other life-travelers, though Issa is obviously talking to himself as well as to the geese. The word for cry in Japanese (naku) means both to cry out or make sounds and to weep, and although Issa here uses the character for making loud sounds, he may also mean cry in the sense of 'feel sorry for yourselves.' He realizes that traveling is hard for the newly arrived geese and that some of their loud honking probably indicates they are having a difficult time accepting many things about their winter home, but with a bit of tough love -- no doubt directed at himself as well -- he urges them not to be too attached to any one home or place, since attachment leads to suffering and unrealistic desires for possession and permanence.

Issa seems to be telling the geese that everywhere they travel is equally part of the ukiyo or "floating world," so they should try to accept and deal with their present environment instead of complaining or commiserating, since if they look closely their winter home in the south is fundamentally no different from their warm-season home to the north of Japan. In Japanese the -yo or "world" of "floating world" is temporal as well as spatial: it means existence, this life, our present life, and the present age as well as the visible, material world of transience, constant transformation, hardship, and sorrow. In Issa's time the term had several other senses, but in this hokku he seems to mean it basically in the Buddhist sense. Issa seems to be telling the geese (and himself) that both the floating material world and their own floating life itineraries are journeys through time and endless change and that the sooner they embrace that attitude the better they will be able to live their lives during the winter months ahead. I tried to translate the hokku in a way that would catch some of the temporal sense of "floating world," since Issa is talking most directly to the geese about their long journey south, a trip that is actually, if they will look at it closely, a paradigm of life itself in the material world.

This hokku was written soon after Issa himself experienced some big changes: in late 1812 he left behind his life in Edo; in the first month of 1813 he at last reached an agreement with his brother in his hometown; in the third month he moved into half of his father's house; and in the sixth month he got a painful boil and was laid up at a student's house for seventy-five days. This hokku was apparently written soon after Issa returned to his hometown again. He seems to want to share with the geese one of the conclusions he's come to based on his own experiences as well as on Buddhist teachings.

Since the nineteenth century, the West has been fascinated by the delicate lines, imaginative compositions, and beautiful colors of Japanese ukiyo-e (literally “pictures of the floating world”) woodcut prints. In Edo period (1603–1868) ukiyo-e were a part of daily life, serving as a means of communication, entertainment, and teaching aids at private educational institutions called terako-ya. In Europe they had a huge influence on the fine arts..http://www.nippon.com/en/views/b02306/.

About The Adachi Institute of Woodcut PrintsThe Adachi Institute prides itself in making reproduction Ukiyo-e prints by employing the same skills, techniques and materials that were used by the original woodcut print makers of the 18th and 19th centuries. .Gallery of Ukiyo-E.https://www.adachi-hanga.com/en_ukiyo-e/aboutus.htm>

Ukiyo-e, a beloved form of mass entertainmentsnipThe history of ukiyo-e and its expansion around the worldThis love stems from the flexible creativity of the ukiyo-e artists, who developed forms of expression and different styles that matched the personal interests of everyday people and who prioritized beauty as a matter of course. In addition, their amazingly high aesthetic sense was a cause of this recognition.

The theme of ukiyo-e is to draw the present (this world) rather than the past or future. Therefore, ukiyo-e artists chose subjects in the forefront of social life and timely topics as a theme, and constantly pleased the common people with their elaborate paintings. Entertainment for most common people in the Edo period meant "amusement" and "theater." These were translated into prints of bijin-ga (prints of beautiful women) and yakusha-e (prints of kabuki actors) in ukiyo-e, which served like present-day fashion magazines, posters and photographs of kabuki actors, and they instantly spread among the common people..MOREhttp://www.kumon-ukiyoe.jp/en/history.php.

Dr. Sookyung Yoo from the Kyoto International Manga Museum will be talking about the Edo Giga collection and the prints that were specifically chosen for exhibition at The Japan Foundation, Sydney. Discover more about giga woodblock prints and how they are related to contemporary Japanese caricature and cartoons.http://www.jpf.org.au/jpfevents/15-edo-giga/events.html.

The production of classic Japanese woodblock prints is a fairly complex process, involving a number of steps, each usually performed by a different person, one skilled in that particular step.I say "classic" because in the modern Japanese print movement, often the artist performs all the steps themselves. However, while classic Japanese prints were sometimes produced in limited editions as 'high art', more usually they were produced in far larger editions as popular, mass-produced art, art that was originally intended to be transitory.

As such, the production process rapidly evolved into one with various specialties, and during the hey-day of ukiyo-e, it was not uncommon for different steps to be performed in different establishments, each with a particular speciality.

he purported thesis of this book — that the art of publishing is a collaborative process involving the cooperation of writer, illustrator, patron, publisher and (shock) even consumer — seems obvious. Yet the four academic essays on ukiyo-e art contained within are both stimulating and beautifully illustrated.

In the first piece, Julie Nelson Davis explores the artistic heritage of the Kano school painter Sekien (1712-1788) and considers a woodblock print which muses on the “reality” of art itself. In essay two, we switch to an analysis of the 1776 illustrated book “The Mirror of Yoshiwara Beauties, Compared” and discover that seemingly stand-alone artistic depictions of beauty were in fact the 18th-century equivalent of product placement, in this case brothels promoting sex workers. Davis really hits her stride in essay three, when we uncurl a handscroll of around 1785, “The Scroll of the Sleeve,” and reveal the sexually explicit shunga by Torii Kiyonaga (1752-1815) — Davis expertly pointing out what dress, hairstyles and the spaces occupied by Kiyonaga’s subjects tells us about their status and relationships.

In her final essay, Davis scrutinizes one of the kibyoshi (yellow-backed books) so popular at the end of the 18th century, revealing the satire of author Santo Kyoden and his mockery of the trite neo-Confucian didacticism of the age.- snip -http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2015/12/26/books/book-reviews/partners-print-artistic-collaboration-ukiyo-e-market/#.VpLpm0_uM3i.

Download Hundreds of 19th-Century Japanese Woodblock Prints by Masters of the Traditionat http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/download-hundreds-of-19th-century-japanese-woodblock-prints-by-masters-of-the-tradition.html.

Japanese Woodblock Prints, the Edo period: Technical ConsiderationsLecture by Yoshio Kusaba san

Here are some pointers based in part on Richard Kruml’s study in Chapter 1, “Techniques of Japanese Printmaking,” Amy Newland and Christ Uhlenbeck, eds., Ukiyo-e to Shin Hanga (Ukiyo-e and Shin Hanga): The Art of Japanese Woodblock Prints (N/P: The Millard Press, 1990), pp. 28-43.

Polyptych of oban sheets in diptych, triptych, pentaptych and even septaptych were made in an attempt to enlarge compositional possibilities of prints, an indication of increasing demands for spectacular prints. In many cases, especially since Torii Kiyonaga (1752-1815), each panel of these polyptychs can be a complete composition in itself and publishable separately, so as to avoid censorship against luxury frequently imposed on the merchant class by the Tokugawa shogunate.• Number of prints or impressions• Wood used for blocks• Key block, or master block• Cutting tools• Precision in printing--kento marks

more is here to downloadhttp://www.academia.edu/15619408/Japanese_prints_lecture_2,

Directory of artists, This section lists almost all prints that are shown in the various gallery sections, sorted by artists names. Due to the number of entries the listing spreads over several pages, each containing around twenty-five items.Degener Galleryhttp://www.degener.com/current.htm

Art of the Pleasure Quarters and the Ukiyo-e StyleThe Edo periodwas a time of relative peace administered by a conservative military government. In order to encourage stability, and influenced by a revived interest in Confucian mores, the Tokugawa regime segregated society into four classes: warriors, farmers, artisans, and—at the bottom of the heap—merchants. Seeking to control public behavior, the Tokugawa shogunateset aside walled areas in all major cities for the establishment of brothels, teahouses, and theaters. In these districts all classes comingled, and money and style dominated.

Edo-period cities contained newly rich townspeople, mostly merchants and artisans known as chonin, who gained economic strength by taking advantage of the dramatic expansion of the cities and commerce. Eventually, they found themselves in a paradoxical position of being economically powerful but socially confined. As a result, they turned their attention, and their assets, to conspicuous consumption and the pursuit of pleasure in the entertainment districts.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art October 2004Read here:http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/plea/hd_plea.htm.